While, gurgling deep below, the buried rill Mines for itself a snow-coved way. O! then, Your helpless charge drive from the tempting spot, And keep them on the bleak hill's stormy side, Where night-winds sweep the gathering drift away:-
-So the great Shepherd leads the heavenly flock From faithless pleasures, full into the storms Of life, where long they bear the bitter blast, Until at length the vernal sun looks forth, Bedimmed with showers: then to the pastures green
He brings them, where the quiet waters glide, The streams of life, the Siloah of the soul.
Six days the heavenly host, in circle vast, Like that untouching cincture which enzones The globe of Saturn, compassed wide this orb, And with the forming mass floated along, In rapid course, through yet untravelled space, Beholding God's stupendous power,—a world Bursting from Chaos at the omnific will, And perfect ere the sixth day's evening star On Paradise arose. Blessed that eve! The Sabbath's harbinger, when, all complete, In freshest beauty from JEHOVAH's hand, Creation bloomed; when Eden's twilight face Smiled like a sleeping babe: the voice divine A holy calm breathed o'er the goodly work : Mildly the sun, upon the loftiest trees, Shed mellowly a sloping beam.
And love, and gratitude; the human pair
Their orisons poured forth; love, concord, reigned. The falcon, perched upon the blooming bough
With Philomela, listened to her lay; Among the antlered herd, the tiger couched Harmless; the lion's mane no terror spread
Among the careless ruminating flock.
Silence was o'er the deep; the noiseless surge, The last subsiding wave,—of that dread tumult Which raged, when Ocean, at the mute command, Rushed furiously into his new-cleft bed,— Was gently rippling on the pebbled shore; While, on the swell, the sea-bird, with her head Wing-veiled, slept tranquilly. The host of heaven, Entranced in new delight, speechless adored; Nor stopped their fleet career, nor changed their form Encircular, till on that hemisphere,-
In which the blissful garden sweet exhaled Its incense, odorous clouds,-the Sabbath dawn Arose; then wide the flying circle oped,
And soared, in semblance of a mighty rainbow. Silent ascend the choirs of Seraphim;
No harp resounds, mute is each voice; the burst Of joy and praise, reluctant they repress,- For love and concord all things so attuned To harmony, that Earth must have received The grand vibration, and to the centre shook : But soon as to the starry altitudes
They reached, then what a storm of sound, tremendous,
Swelled through the realms of space! The morning stars
Together sang, and all the sons of God
Shouted for joy! Loud was the peal; so loud As would have quite o'erwhelmed human sense; But to the earth it came a gentle strain, Like softest fall breathed from Æolian lute, When 'mid the chords the evening gale expires. Day of the Lord! creation's hallowed close! Day of the Lord! (prophetical they sang) Benignant mitigation of that doom,
Which must, ere long, consign the fallen race, Dwellers in yonder star, to toil and wo!
THE FINDING OF MOSES.
SLOW glides the Nile: amid the margin flags, Closed in a bulrush ark, the babe is left,- Left by a mother's hand. His sister waits Far off; and pale, 'tween hope and fear, beholds The royal maid, surrounded by her train, Approach the river bank,—approach the spot Where sleeps the innocent: she sees them stoop With meeting plumes; the rushy lid is oped, And wakes the infant, smiling in his tears, As when along a little mountain lake, The summer south-wind breathes, with gentle sigh, And parts the reeds, unveiling, as they bend, A water-lily floating on the wave.
PHARAOH upon a gorgeous throne of state Was seated; while around him stood submiss His servants, watchful of his lofty looks. The Patriarch enters, leaning on the arm Of Benjamin. Unmoved by all the glare Of royalty, he scarcely throws a glance Upon the pageant show; for from his youth A shepherd's life he led, and viewed each night The starry host; and still, where'er he went,
e felt himself in presence of the Lord. is eye is bent on Joseph, him pursues. dden the king descends; and, bending, kneels efore the aged man, and supplicates
blessing from his lips! the aged man
ays on the ground his staff, and, stretching forth is tremulous hand o'er Pharaoh's uncrowned head, rays that the Lord would bless him and his land.
FROM conquest JEPHTHA came, with faltering step
And troubled eye: his home appears in view; He trembles at the sight. Sad he forebodes,- His vow will meet a victim in his child : For well he knows, that, from her earliest years, She still was first to meet his homeward steps: Well he remembers, how, with tottering gait, Sheran, and clasped his knees, and lisped, and looked Her joy; and how, when garlanding with flowers His helm, fearful, her infant hand would shrink Back from the lion couched beneath the crest. What sound is that, which, from the palm-tree grove, Floats now with choral swell, now fainter falls Upon the ear? It is, it is the song
He loved to hear,— —a song of thanks and praise, Sung by the patriarch for his ransomed son. Hope from the omen springs: O, blessed hope! It may not be her voice!-Fain would he think 'Twas not his daughter's voice, that still approached, Blent with the timbrel's note. Forth from the grove
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